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Eleve
Guest
I may be giving up any chance of salvation by posting this, but it’s darn near worth it:
files.kruzen.com/072003/michaeljackson.jpg
files.kruzen.com/072003/michaeljackson.jpg
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humble_in_doubt
Guest
gosh darn … people are quick with the jokes aren’t they? That was pretty good (but I like my thriller one better
). Actually it’s not my thriller joke … it’s my brothers (who made it up before the mainstream media even confirmed his death). I was driving and listening to the radio & heard the early reports as they were happening (and immediately called my little brother).
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PennitentMan
Guest
Ah, I was wondering when Ps14:1 was going to make it’s apperanceYou better be right. If not, then you will be held responsible for their loss of salvation, too.
As for all the rest: If you do not believe in the Triune God, and if you do not believe in pagan gods, then what is left is that you have actually made yourself your own god. As your own god, you must see that you have limitations, of course, since you cannot “create” out of “nothing” which is an attribute of the True God. However, we all know that every one of us can destroy things using our own free wills.
You believe that your future abode is of your own choosing since you are your own god. Time will tell if you are correct.
So, why not give up on us Catholics since we will not be changing our minds, and instead mosey on over to a non-Catholic forum, preferably an atheist one, so that you can all enlighten each other with your own self-thought brilliance? It won’t do you any good to stay here because we Catholics think you are very unwise in your thinking and beliefs and we will keep telling you this very thing. We are just wasting each others’ time, don’t you think? Personally, I will not continue to post on this particular thread because of this very fact.
Proverbs 18:2 “A fool has no delight in understanding, But in expressing his own heart.”
Psalm 14:1 "The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.”
Gotta luv them scripture verses 
No worries if you don’t want to post anymore, I understand your reasoning, but I think that’s maybe what an internet board is all about. No experience is gained by sticking to your own kind and feeling all warm and fuzzy. This is the non-Catholic part of it, after all.
Or, it might also be that you just can’t prove the claims you made above and just accept it on blind faith.
I keep posting here because I find it challenges me on my convictions and I gain further insight into things as I debate.
If you wish tio withdraw, now prob, see you around.
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gurneyhalleck1
Guest
Atheism is a tragic belief system IMHO and a dark path that is difficult for a Christian to watch someone go down. It seems liberating, free, happy, and a “no worries” philosophy with an Eaglesish “peaceful, easy feeling.”
The reality about atheism is that it leads to more horrors than atheists claim Christians and other theists have unleashed. With no god or higher power, humans become social darwinists and a survival of the fittest only makes sense. Why isn’t Hitler wrong when he calls Jews inferior? There’s no God to tell him otherwise and obviously we’re all just on this big blue marbel called Earth to duke it out for power and self-interest. So Hitler can exterminate 6 million Jews pretty much guilt-free. In his eyes they were parasites, moochers, genetically inferior, and inherently untrustworthy. Maybe Pol Pot was right in the 1970’s in Cambodia then? Who’s to say he was wrong in exterminating his own people with the Khmer regime? Atheists say we can’t prove God. Well technically we can’t “prove” that Pol Pot, Hitler, Stalin, or any of these other maniacs are wrong or right either? Atheism delivers us into that myriad of little prisons where we all live inside our own cages believing what we want, being barriers and islands to one another. Hitler decided his island was best and so did most of Germany. The result wasn’t pretty.
Abortion, communism, holocausts, and so many other lovely inventions come from this isolated secular moral relativism. Hitler, for example, was a Catholic as a young man who never cared much for his Church or faith. As he became more racist, bitter, and evil he steadily manufactured religion that fit his own evil needs until he embraced neo-pagan theology mixed with a strong dose of bigotry.
I’ve heard the argument many times that Christianity is immature and weak because it is predicated on eternal reward with a disregard for the now, the earthly, the present. I reject this. Christianity seeks Heaven on Earth, on earth as it is in Heaven. If we all followed Mother Church better, rejected abortion, loved one another, admitted the nature of sin and sought a life of holiness, the world would be a better place. Maybe some atheists are by nature good people, kind, charitable, caring, and even better people morally than a lof of Catholics. Anything’s possible and often is. But there is the danger for theists and atheists to use their own beliefs to bring dangerous developments to our world. One can easily justify God’s will to inflict harm on others as easily as atheists can live in their own little box and disregard morality or flat-out not believe in morality at all.
What is the point of morality without God? Is morality part of human evolution? What’s the point and why have it really? The reverse of the “Christians only do good works out of a thought of heavenly reward” argument is that atheists can disregard morality altogether any day of the week because they have no punishment or consequence at all in the after life? Why not embezzle at work, commit adultery behind your wife’s back, kill someone, or lie, cheat and manipulate your way to the top? Where is the objective morality for an atheist?
I hear “prove it! prove it!” over and over about the existence of God. One could just as easily say “prove it!” with morals. They are no more self-evident than God. If anything, shouldn’t we just embrace our urges, needs, desires for power, and fight our way through life?
Atheism is chaos, pure and simple . It is unfathomable to me that this earth is random, accidental, or a freak event. Science is too complex, too ordered, and too beautiful to be meaningless. And the fact that we can reason, care, want to be something greater than we currently are as human beings, it all points upward to God. In the end, what’s the point? Without God there is no point, no destination, no heart, no soul, no beauty, and anything that atheists see as poetic, beautiful, meaningful, or of any depth is just transient emptiness and a void…
The reality about atheism is that it leads to more horrors than atheists claim Christians and other theists have unleashed. With no god or higher power, humans become social darwinists and a survival of the fittest only makes sense. Why isn’t Hitler wrong when he calls Jews inferior? There’s no God to tell him otherwise and obviously we’re all just on this big blue marbel called Earth to duke it out for power and self-interest. So Hitler can exterminate 6 million Jews pretty much guilt-free. In his eyes they were parasites, moochers, genetically inferior, and inherently untrustworthy. Maybe Pol Pot was right in the 1970’s in Cambodia then? Who’s to say he was wrong in exterminating his own people with the Khmer regime? Atheists say we can’t prove God. Well technically we can’t “prove” that Pol Pot, Hitler, Stalin, or any of these other maniacs are wrong or right either? Atheism delivers us into that myriad of little prisons where we all live inside our own cages believing what we want, being barriers and islands to one another. Hitler decided his island was best and so did most of Germany. The result wasn’t pretty.
Abortion, communism, holocausts, and so many other lovely inventions come from this isolated secular moral relativism. Hitler, for example, was a Catholic as a young man who never cared much for his Church or faith. As he became more racist, bitter, and evil he steadily manufactured religion that fit his own evil needs until he embraced neo-pagan theology mixed with a strong dose of bigotry.
I’ve heard the argument many times that Christianity is immature and weak because it is predicated on eternal reward with a disregard for the now, the earthly, the present. I reject this. Christianity seeks Heaven on Earth, on earth as it is in Heaven. If we all followed Mother Church better, rejected abortion, loved one another, admitted the nature of sin and sought a life of holiness, the world would be a better place. Maybe some atheists are by nature good people, kind, charitable, caring, and even better people morally than a lof of Catholics. Anything’s possible and often is. But there is the danger for theists and atheists to use their own beliefs to bring dangerous developments to our world. One can easily justify God’s will to inflict harm on others as easily as atheists can live in their own little box and disregard morality or flat-out not believe in morality at all.
What is the point of morality without God? Is morality part of human evolution? What’s the point and why have it really? The reverse of the “Christians only do good works out of a thought of heavenly reward” argument is that atheists can disregard morality altogether any day of the week because they have no punishment or consequence at all in the after life? Why not embezzle at work, commit adultery behind your wife’s back, kill someone, or lie, cheat and manipulate your way to the top? Where is the objective morality for an atheist?
I hear “prove it! prove it!” over and over about the existence of God. One could just as easily say “prove it!” with morals. They are no more self-evident than God. If anything, shouldn’t we just embrace our urges, needs, desires for power, and fight our way through life?
Atheism is chaos, pure and simple . It is unfathomable to me that this earth is random, accidental, or a freak event. Science is too complex, too ordered, and too beautiful to be meaningless. And the fact that we can reason, care, want to be something greater than we currently are as human beings, it all points upward to God. In the end, what’s the point? Without God there is no point, no destination, no heart, no soul, no beauty, and anything that atheists see as poetic, beautiful, meaningful, or of any depth is just transient emptiness and a void…
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Eleve
Guest
Well, Aristotle, it’s one thing to ratiocinate about how atheists logically ought to act, and another thing to actually look at the actions of an average atheist. Do you think that me or AA go out killing people because we see nothing wrong with it? And, if I don’t see anything wrong with murder, how exactly do you expect to convince me with this argument? If, as an atheist, I don’t think that killing is wrong, why should I care that atheism supposedly justifies mass murder?
So if theists can do it “just as easily,” isn’t all that stuff about murder just the null hypothesis with regards to religion?
No, it doesn’t work like that. The reverse of the flawed argument that “atheists can disregard morality altogether any day of the week because they have no punishment or consequence at all in the after life” is the equally flawed argument that “Christians only do good works out of a thought of heavenly reward.” Atheists generally understand that Christians would have morality even if they didn’t have their faith, but we’re also perfectly willing to point out the ridiculous consequences of flawed premises.
There is no “where” that we can find morality. Morality subsists in the logical consequences of self-evident moral axioms. If you can find your morality in a “place,” then it isn’t objective; it’s based on the subjective view from that place.
If you want to, go for it. Once again, you try to convince us that atheists are monsters in the making, but you already assume that we atheists understand and value morality in order to even make this argument to us.
So the existence of God is contingent on your ability to understand nature? To me, this smacks of the God of the Gaps.
What are these assertions founded on? They are nonsense. If you were staring at a rose, and meanwhile God just stepped out of the picture, would you cease to perceive the rose as beautiful? Transient emptiness, indeed.
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josie_L
Guest
You know I chose to pm him for his help during our invasion (of atheists) several weeks ago (do you recall annabea?). He did a good job! He was calm, cool and most importantly . . . . . Catholic.
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PennitentMan
Guest
Morality is not something innate to Christianity. It’s something innate to humanity.
Atheists do good. It’s in our capacity to be good. It’s in humanity’s capacity to be good.
There will be monsters and freaks in all walks of life, yes, even in religious circles, but they are the exceptions. It’s the rest of the world’s responsibility to stop these monsters. Like with World War II, The world stepped up and stopped the aggressors.
For the rest of the world, for normal people, morality is found innate in ourselves, not from god.
We respect human life and human persons. We agree that everyone has the right to live freely, and those of us who have the power work to put these systems in place in places where they are not.
What is the point of morality without god? Mutual human respect. The so called “Golden Rule” stretches much further and wider than Christianity. The basis of “I’ll help you because I would like you to help me if I was in your position” is much larger than Christianity or any religious group and I can’t understand how they would want to claim it for themselves.
Embezzlement, adultery, murder and cheating are things that, when we do them , have tangible effects on our lives. Even if you didn’t have any moral upbringing (also something that is found outside the church) the repercussions of your actions are such that you will hurt other people. Hurting others is, for the average Joe, not a pleasant thing, and when faced with the consequences of his actions, he will show remorse.
There are also clues to them being right or wrong by the law, especially in our society.
As with charity I think it even more noble for an atheist or secular humanist, or freethinker, etc, to be good and moral, out of respect for his fellow man, rather than for fear of upsetting god.
To think that the human race needs a religion to keep them on the straight and narrow is kind of insulting to humanity. The issue has been addressed many times by very intelligent folks like Harris and Hitchens and they can express it much more eloquently than I can.
I’ll leave this with something that Hitchens said. (And I paraphrase)
“Show me one moral action that a Christian performed that cannot be performed by an atheist.”
It’s innate in us as humans.
S
SHW
Guest
No, I accept it on reasoned faith, not blind faith.Or, it might also be that you just can’t prove the claims you made above and just accept it on blind faith.
God did not have to knock me down and “blind” me as He did Paul in order to convince me to have faith in Him. 
For Eleve who said"
Commandments are made by God, Catholics who desire to please God try to obey them. We don’t make the commandments, but Jesus’ Church commands that we obey them. Either you believe what the Catholic Church states about Jesus, or you do not. God gives each person enough grace to either choose Him or reject Him using their own free wills. But, don’t blame Catholics or God for your own choice if your choice happens to be the wrong one and you find out at your death that there is a God and that the Catholic Church really is His Church with His authority on earth.
Either the Catholic Church just made up a storybook and claimed it to be the Word of God or the Catholic Church is telling the truth and the Bible really is the Word of God. Now, it is up to every person to decide whether the Catholic Church’s Bible is the truth or not.
The Protestants “borrowed” the Catholic Bible, made their own translations of it, took out some books, and then decided to call their “new” altered book their own sole authority of faith.
They chose to be their own private authorities (they act like little popes) as to its interpretation. Of course, each person believes that his/her own private interpretations are correct and that their fellow Christians’ private interpretations are in error because they don’t happen to agree with his/her own private interpretations. God has given them free will to do this, but God gave them no authority to do this. Only His Catholic Church’s hierarchy was given His authority on earth to act as His representative on earth.
Books actually have no authority by themselves. You either believe the author of the Book (the Catholic Church) and her interpretation of her own work or you do not. I personally would not believe the persons who borrowed the Catholic Bible and made changes to it and then applied their own private interpretations to their altered book. But, then, to each his own!
Since the Catholic Church’s hierarchy, inspired by the Holy Spirit, authored this Book, then they alone have God’s authority to interpret their own Book. God gave no other persons authority to interpret His Church’s Book. Non-Catholics don’t want to hear this, but facts are facts.
There will always be evil men working within His Church (like Judas) and also evil men who are not in the Church who will try to usurp its teachings through political pressure, persecution, etc. in order to draw people away from her teachings. However, we have God’s promise that they will never succeed in changing its teachings. In order to be sure what is truth and what is not, look to Peter’s successor, the Pope who has the keys of the kingdom of heaven, since he alone was given “chief stewardship authority” by Jesus Himself to lead His one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.
So, if your own beliefs do not match those of His Church, then the fault is not the Church’s, but your own. I have conformed my own beliefs to His Church’s teachings. You all may do what you desire since you have free will. And, believe me, if you do not desire to inherit eternal life, you surely will not, so don’t waste any time worrying about it, okay? You’ve got better things to do, I’m sure! :juggle:
However, we do not get to choose the criteria by which we are judged. That belongs to God alone. Personally, I found it prudent to find out how He will be judging and I am striving to live my own life according to His criteria so that I may inherit eternal life when I die. :getholy:
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SHW
Guest
He adored his Creator.
I am unsubscribing from this thread now; (I forgot to after my post earlier today.) I just do not have time to rehash the same old stuff over and over. If anyone chooses to reply to this post or to previous posts of mine, I hope my fellow Catholics will answer them for you. Their answers surely will be as good as mine and most likely better.
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PennitentMan
Guest
The key word here is still faithNo, I accept it on reasoned faith, not blind faith.
Since “Creator” is still unproven, there are some problems with this statement.
Okay, Bye again:wave:
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jam070406
Guest
Do you think Hitchens could abstain from sex? Doubt it.
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Eleve
Guest
He didn’t say that he, personally, could do it. I’m sure that there are atheists who abstain from sex.
Not that it matters to me. I think most atheists would agree that there is no moral imperative not to have sex.
Not that it matters to me. I think most atheists would agree that there is no moral imperative not to have sex.
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josie_L
Guest
But could they abstain from sex (chastity) indefinitely is the question (as would one who is consecrated to Christ)? And/or could they take a vow of poverty/obedience along with that?
The statement from Christopher Hitchens was Atheists can do pretty much anything that Christians can (morally-speaking).
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Eleve
Guest
And those examples are irrelevant, because becoming a monk is not a moral question.
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jam070406
Guest
Yes, but he put forth the challenge. And I gave an example that dispells his theory.
Perhaps, but for reasons other then the moral implication or consequence involved, which you stated doesn’t exist with atheists.
Yes, I figured it wouldn’t.
Right, morality that doesn’t suit the atheist’s pursuit to further his own desires is tossed out the window. It’s all relative.
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PennitentMan
Guest
No, your example not only irrelevant, but also possible to perform.
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jam070406
Guest
I think there are a few Monks on these boards that would argue otherwise. And Hitchens certainly couldn’t live up to their standards, routines or practices.
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Eleve
Guest
No, pseudo-morality that has nothing to do with protecting real people is considered invalid. Having (safe) sex is not harmful, and therefore not immoral. Just like being gay, working at a landfill, or anything else that makes you say “eww” is not immoral.
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PennitentMan
Guest
Once again, Hitchens didn’t say him personally would perform this, he implied that morality is innate in humanity regrdless of their religion.
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